Wirraway plane wreckage

Just a month after Darwin was first attacked by Japanese aircraft in 1942, a Royal Australian Air Force 12 Squadron Wirraway A20-62—Australia’s first mass-produced war-plane—was on a salvage mission for a 12 Squadron Wirraway that had force-landed at Drysdale. Flying from Batchelor in the Northern Territory to Wyndham, their engine had failed, and they were forced to land on the coastal saltmarsh near the WA-NT border. After a long trek, the two pilots were rescued by four Aboriginal stockmen from nearby Carlton Hill Station. These remnants of the Wirraway A20-62 (now on display) were found in 2004 on the WA coast, just 5 km inside the border.